Currently, the common method of wound treatment is to cover the wound with a wound dressing. The wound dressing is manufactured as a precut sheet of multi-layer material of various shapes and sizes. The wound dressing is applied to cover the wound and a portion of the surrounding healthy skin. Sometimes the wound dressing is cut to reduce the size and to better fit the wound size and shape. This reduces the amount of healthy skin covered by the dressing.
A typical wound commonly has two or more different regions or areas, including necrotic, sloughy, bacteria colonized, granulating, epitheliazing, bleeding, exudating, and drying, which are surrounded by healthy skin tissue. The wound and its various areas are usually of irregular shapes. Consequently, covering the whole wound area and surrounding healthy skin with the same standard dressing type may create adverse conditions for certain areas of the wound or the surrounding skin, which may increase the healing time or even cause adverse effects such as secondary dermatitis.
Basic principles for wound treatment are: (a) keep wound moist, (b) control excessive exudate, (c) keep healthy skin dry. Generally speaking, a wound is a non-homogeneous object. Within the same wound there may be simultaneously exudating and drying tissue areas. So a wound caregiver, if he or she was to recognize the treatment expedients of each unique wound area, would need absorptive and moisturizing properties combined within one dressing. However, to control local properties of the dressing from highly moisture vapor permeable to low moisture vapor permeable on-demand is a challenge.
Therefore, in view of the here recognized idea of treating each wound area uniquely according to its characteristics, it would be desirable to provide a method for wound care that provides the optimal targeted moisture vapor control conditions for wound healing in each wound area by matching the size, shape, and water and water vapor retaining property of each of different areas in a wound dressing to the correspondingly targeted wound areas and current wound conditions. It would also be desirable to provide a system to produce such a wound dressing.